5 Approaches to Encourage Organizational Change at Your Firm

Legal technology is changing rapidly, and keeping up with all the new tools out there can feel overwhelming. But implementing these tips now can make organizational change a foundational element of your firm’s growth.

According to Robert Half Legal’s report, Future Law Office 2020: Redefining the Practice of Law, emerging technologies are slated to have one of the largest impacts on the practice of law in the next five years. You want to make sure your team adapts to the new normal quickly and seamlessly. Now is the time to embrace change in your firm.

When faced with the need to adapt to market demands and implement increased legal technology into your workflow, here are five tips to consider:

1. Utilize the Clean Slate technique - New Year’s resolutions aren’t completely bogus! A surprising 36% of successful changes are connected to a new “beginning.” That can mean a new fiscal quarter, a new hire, a new software implementation, or yes, even the first day of a new year. Piggybacking a system revamp onto another existing change in the office gives it more momentum and likelihood to stick.
   
   
2. Start small and ramp up later - Behavior science proves that the “go big or go home” mentality actually leads to… going nowhere. Take one small step, like automating Office Action responses or IDSs for just one client (that really nasty one that takes up way more time than the others). Once the new routine is implemented and the kinks are smoothed out, ramping up will be exponentially easier.
   
   
3. Automate the tedious parts of your daily tasks - No machine can replace your insight into the patent prosecution process, but time-sucking administrative tasks should be left to artificial intelligence. Automation is on the rise in the workplace — do you have any repetitive tasks worth streamlining? Letting computers do the tedious work frees up your staff for higher-level projects that are more suited for their knowledge and experience, increasing the efficiency of your entire firm.
   
   
4. Fit the change into your existing workflow - You’ve spent time and energy finding a flow that works for you and your team. There’s no need to shake up the entire system. Tools like Juristat are meant to fit within your process, not blow it up. For example, if your paralegal or administrative professional pulls new Office Actions from Pair, fills the Examiner arguments into the templated response, cleans up the claim language, and pulls all the prior arts, condensing these four steps into one download from an automation tool will be a seamless transition towards efficiency.
   
   
5. Build up your support systems - Change is hard, and no one person should need to sort out all the implementation factors alone. Look for tools that come with robust customer support features, so that you’re not stuck downloading a tool with no plan on how to use it in your day-to-day workflow. 

Implementing new technology in any work setting can feel like a huge undertaking. We like to say here at Juristat that a good tool, implemented poorly, becomes a poor tool. Find the right tool that will plug into your existing workflow, and keep your current system intact. This way the change won’t feel like a complete disruption to the way you’ve always done things at your firm. 

Juristat’s workflow automation solutions take care of the most tedious tasks associated with patent prosecution – all without you or your staff lifting a finger. To see how our workflow automation can transform your Office Action response and IDS strategies, sign up for a demo today.